Yolo-Mendocino-Colusa County CA Archives Biographies.....LaBrie, Napoleon Bonapart 1849 -
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 10, 2005, 12:22 pm
Author: Tom Gregory
NAPOLEON BONAPART LaBRIE
As the name indicates, the subject of this sketch is of French descent and in
addition to that he is a native of Virginia, having-been born near the Natural
Bridge, Rockbridge county, May 12, 1849. He was the son of Joseph and Elizabeth
(Downs) LaBrie, who were born, respectively, in France and Virginia. The father
was educated for the priesthood, but becoming dissatisfied with his religion he
gave it up and for this he was disinherited. He then immigrated to this country
and settled in Virginia, where he married. After coming to this country he
became a sculptor. At the time of the Civil war he enlisted in the Confederate
army as a lieutenant and met his death in the battle of the Wilderness. His wife
passed away in Virginia in 1906. Of the ten children born to these parents only
two survive, Napoleon B. and his youngest sister, Josephine, who is now Mrs.
Dudley, of Lynchburg, Va.
Until he was eighteen years of age Napoleon B. LaBrie remained in his native
state, then came to California and settled in Mendocino county. Naturally in
that unsettled locality he engaged in stock raising, and in protecting his herds
from the wild animals of the surrounding forests he became an expert and noted
hunter. Bear, panthers and wild cats were his especial prey, as these fierce
carnivora were thickest around his colt and calf corrals. The year 1898 found
him aboard a steamer bound from Seattle to Skagway, his soul burning up with the
Klondyke fever. Climbing through the snowy Chilcoot Pass and making his way down
the Yukon, he struck Dawson City and joined the great army of goldseekers. Of
course there were not mines enough to go around, and he did what he could.
Chopping wood was a profitable business, and Mr. LaBrie could swing an axe with
the best of them. From $15 to $20 a cord for turning the forests into four-foot
lengths for the river steamers was fair pay, and better than thousands of gold
mines on the creeks were paying. Where the timber was easy to get at he has cut
three cords in a day. The intense cold was no detriment to the choppers; many
days they would be working when it was sixty below. At times they would lay
their axes aside and "stampede" with the band for some new-found rich creek.
There he would stake out his claim and return with the crowd to civilization and
his woodchopping. Another diversion was hunting, and he sold many a pound of
bear and moose meat to miners and other consumers at lofty prices. The flesh of
a twelve hundred pound moose netted him $600. Mr. LaBrie says he knew of hunters
in the Klondyke who cleared $10,000 a year each in the wild meat business. He
has seen caribou in droves of one thousand on their way north, where they have
their young, and afterward has seen the same herds returning south with the
calves. He passed a long winter (seven months) twenty miles north of the Arctic
Circle alone with his dog, some of the time in semi-starvation. When he had
settled down in the final sleep that comes to the hungry man in that awful cold
he was awakened by a noise outside the cabin, and, dragging himself to the door,
saw two moose near by. He managed to get his rifle at work and, though he was so
weak he could hardly stand, he managed to kill both of the animals. It was
providential, as he was helpless in that place, having no snowshoes for travel
and no food to eat on the journey. Once he was found by Indians frozen on the
trail. He had $7,000 with him, his partner having gone ahead with the dog-team
for help. The Indians thawed him out and saved his life.
Mr. LaBrie made a number of trips between Seattle and Daw-son before he
concluded that he had enough of the north and its great white wastes. He is now
a farmer of the farm instead of a tiller of the nugget-bearing soil along the
icy Yukon, and he finds the Capay valley more congenial than the Alaskan plains.
He married in Colusa Miss Fannie Johnson, and the children born to them are:
Minnie, George (deceased), Ruby and Fannie. Minnie married D. E. Jacobs, and
they have one daughter, named Bernice. Ruby married E. W. Armfield, who is
practicing law in Woodland. Fannie, Mrs. Brunson, has two sons, Glenford and
Lloyd. Mrs. LaBrie passed away thirty years ago. Mr. LaBrie has charge of one
hundred acres in almonds and other fruits, carrying on this large orchard with
success, and now, after his adventurous life, he takes it easy in his
comfortable home in Capay.
Additional Comments:
Extracted from
HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present
HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]
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